“Mr. Carl, have you ever been to Lackawanna County?”
“Excuse me?”
“Lackawanna County.”
“Sir?”
“It’s a simple query. Have you ever been to Lackawanna County?”
“What does that have to do with my driving?”
“Answer the question,” barked Clerk O’Brien.
“Do I know you?” I said to the clerk. “You seem awfully damn familiar.”
“Watch your language, boy,” said the judge. “I’m talking the towns of Jessup, Olyphant, Dickson City, Scranton. Lackawanna County. Have you ever been?”
“I suppose so,” I said. “Scranton’s right up the northeast extension of the Turnpike.”
“Yes it is,” said the judge. “How about Chinchilla?”
“The rodent?”
“The town.”
“What’s going on?”
“I have here in your file a bench warrant issued against you by the District Court of Chinchilla, Pennsylvania, located in the Forty-fifth Judicial District, Lackawanna County, that requires me to immediately place you into custody.”
“Are you serious?”
“As a swollen prostate.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Step back, Mr. Carl,” said the judge.
“Step back,” ordered Clerk O’Brien.
Before I could even try to follow their directives, I felt two clamps fasten themselves, one to each of my arms. I instinctively pulled away, to no avail. I spun my head as far as it would go. The two cops. With their jaws jutting out. The two cops. They had come into the courtroom for me. Of course they had.
“This is all a mistake,” I said.
“That may be,” said the judge, “but we’ll have to sort it all out later.”
“Arms behind your back, please,” said one of the cops.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Do I look like a kidder,” said the cop, his face as solid and blank as a brick wall.
The judge stared at me with hard eyes as I was cuffed, as if I had broken into his house and raped his daughter. Somehow this had become personal between him and me and I didn’t know how, I didn’t understand how. And then I realized it wasn’t personal, at least not between him and me. It wasn’t old Judge Geary who had turned on me like a snarling raccoon. It was something far more dangerous. The law itself, for some reason, had turned against me. First I had been dragged into the District Attorney’s office like a common miscreant and then the sheriff had refused to aid my collections and now a bench warrant had been issued against my person and I was going directly to jail.
“This is outrageous,” I said. “This is patently unconstitutional.”
“File your writs, Mr. Carl,” said judge.
“Oh, I will, you can bet on it.”
“And we’ll get to them in due course,” said the judge, writing something brusquely on my file as the cuffs bit into my wrists and the police officers led me away to a door at the side of the well.
The judge slammed the file shut, handed it to the clerk, and, just as I was being pushed through the door, said, “Next case.”
Another hesitant defendant came forward, head bowed, license held precariously in his trembling hand.
“You’ve been a naughty boy, Mr. Dayanim,” said the judge.
The door closed behind me.
Traffic Court.
Chapter 42
I SAT IN the dinky little lockup at Traffic Court, leaning forward on the metal bench, my elbows on my knees, my head in my hands, contemplating the sorriness of my sorry life, when I looked up and was blinded by a great flash of light. Satori? No. Slocum.
“I hope you don’t mind,” said ADA Slocum, indicating the instant camera in his hand. “I just wanted to remember this moment, to savor it on those long cold nights when true justice seems elusive.”
I stood quickly, grabbed hold of my beltless pants to keep them up. “Are you here to spring me?”
“Your partner called,” he said. “I was in the middle of lunch with McDeiss. It’s not a pretty sight.”
“I’ve seen the lions being fed at the zoo, I get the idea. Are you here to spring me?”
“It pains me to say this, Carl, but yes. I am here to facilitate your release.”
“Good. I’ve got someplace I need to be.”
“Something pleasant, I hope.”
“Just a woman.”
“Nice looking?”
“She was.” Pause. “So?”
“It appears,” said Slocum slowly, “a bench warrant was issued early this year in Lackawanna County against a Vincent Carillo, a resident of the City of Philadelphia.”
“Ah,” I said. “That explains everything. A perfectly honest mistake, because my name is neither Vincent nor Carillo and so, of course, I was cuffed in public and taken into custody and made to sit in this stinking cell for three stinking hours.”
“There’s no reason to raise your voice like that.”
“Get me the hell out of here.”
“They’re finishing the paperwork. A few more minutes.”
We stood there for a moment on either side of the bars, quiet, as if nothing more needed to be said. I gave in first. “So why did they put me in here if the name on the warrant wasn’t mine?”
“There seems to have been an entry error on the computer,” he said.
“Just so happens to have been an entry error with my name on it.”
“Just so happens.”
“No idea how?”
“None.”
“Well, I have some.”
“I told you not to mess with him.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Did you keep away from him like you promised?”
“Yes I did.”
“And his wife?”
“I tried.”
“Tried?”
“She came to me.”
“Uh huh.”
“Is that a crime?”
He looked at me for a moment through the bars. “Evidently.”
“He’s up to his neck in something.”
“Your horseshit is what he’s up to his neck in.”
“There’s a clerk here who is involved somehow too. I think he beat me up and threatened me right after you called me into your office.”
“You didn’t tell me about being beaten up.”
“Do you want to hear about all my problems? Do you want to hear about my father, my love life, the way Comcast unfairly cut off my cable?”
“No cable?”
“Don’t get me started.”
“You said you think he beat you up?”
“It was in my vestibule. I was facedown on the floor. I didn’t catch a face, but I recognized the voice. His name’s O’Brien. Geoffrey O’Brien. You might want to see if there is any connection between him and our friend.”
“I might want to,” said Slocum, “and then I might not want to get anywhere near your problems.” He tilted his head and looked behind me. There were four other men in the cell, a varied assortment ranging from well dressed to not, all in deeper trouble then they ever expected when they stepped through the Traffic Court metal detectors. “You drum up any business?”
“I was improperly placed into custody and my good name was slandered in public by some crackpot judge maliciously executing a mistakenly entered bench warrant that was not so mistakenly entered. I don’t need to drum up any business,” I said. “I’ll be too busy representing myself the next few months to take on any new clients.”
Just then a cop came to the cell with a clipboard and the thick manila envelope into which I had deposited my keys, my belt, my wallet and watch. He unlocked the barred door, slid it open, called out my name as if I were in a crowd twenty feet away.
“Yes,” I said.
“Mr. Carl, you’re free to go.”
As I stepped through the door, one of the men behind me said, “I’ll call you when I can, Mr. Carl. My mom will get that retainer to you like you told me. Maybe you can pop me out quick as you popped out you self.”
“Me too,” said another one.
I turned toward them. “That will be fine, gentlemen. You all have my number, right?”
They each waved a small business card.
“Good luck, then. I look forward to hearing from you.”
Slocum shook his head as he walked with me down the hall away from the cell.